The Souls' Rising - Poem by George MacDonald

Autoplay next video

See how the storm of life ascendsUp through the shadow of the world!Beyond our gaze the line extends,Like wreaths of vapour tempest-hurled!Grasp tighter, brother, lest the stormShould sweep us down from where we stand,And we may catch some human formWe know, amongst the straining band.

See! see in yonder misty cloudOne whirlwind sweep, and we shall hearThe voice that waxes yet more loudAnd louder still approaching near!

Listen! oh listen!See how its eyeballs roll and glistenWith a wild and fearful stareUpwards through the shining air,Or backwards with averted look,As a child were gazing at a bookFull of tales of fear and dread,When the thick night-wind came hollow and dead.

Round about it, wavering and light.As the moths flock round a candle at night,A crowd of phantoms sheeted and dumbStrain to its words as they shrilly come:Brother, my brother, dost thou hear?They pierce through the tumult sharp and clear!

'The rush of speed is on my soul,My eyes are blind with things I see;I cannot grasp the awful whole,I cannot gird the mystery!The mountains sweep like mist away;The great sea shakes like flakes of fire;The rush of things I cannot seeIs mounting upward higher and higher!Oh! life was still and full of calmIn yonder spot of earthly ground,But now it rolls a thunder-psalm,Its voices drown my ear in sound!Would God I were a child againTo nurse the seeds of faith and power;I might have clasped in wisdom thenA wing to beat this awful hour!The dullest things would take my marks-

Theytook my marks like drifted snow-God! how the footsteps rise in sparks,Rise like myself and onward go!Have pity, O ye driving thingsThat once like me had human form!For I am driven for lack of wingsA shreddy cloud before the storm!'

How its words went through me then,Like a long forgotten pang,Till the storm's embrace againSwept it far with sudden clang!-Ah, methinks I see it still!Let us follow it, my brother,Keeping close to one another,Blessing God for might of will!Closer, closer, side by side!Ours are wings that deftly glideUpwards, downwards, and crosswiseFlashing past our ears and eyes,Splitting up the comet-tracksWith a whirlwind at our backs!

How the sky is blackening!Yet the race is never slackening;Swift, continual, and strong,Streams the torrent slope along,Like a tidal surge of facesMolten into one despair;Each the other now displaces,A continual whirl of spaces;Ah, my fainting eyesight reelsAs I strive in vain to stareOn a thousand turning wheelsDimly in the gloom descending,Faces with each other blending!-Let us beat the vapours back,We are yet upon his track.

Didst thou see a spirit haltUpright on a cloudy peak,As the lightning's horrid faultSmote a gash into the cheekOf the grinning thunder-cloudWhich doth still besiege and crowdUpward from the nether pitsWhere the monster Chaos sits,Building o'er the fleeing rackRoofs of thunder long and black?Yes, I see it! I will shoutTill I stop the horrid rout.Ho, ho! spirit-phantom, tellIs thy path to heaven or hell?We would hear thee yet again,What thy standing amongst men,What thy former history,And thy hope of things to be!Wisdom still we gain from hearing:We would know, we would knowWhither thou art steering-Unto weal or woe!

Ah, I cannot hear it speaking!Yet it seems as it were seekingThrough our eyes our souls to reachWith a quaint mysterious speech,As with stretched and crossing palmsOne were tracing diagramsOn the ebbing of the beach,Till with wild unmeasured danceAll the tiptoe waves advance,Seize him by the shoulder, cover,Turn him up and toss him over:He is vanished from our sight,Nothing mars the quiet nightSave a speck of gloom afarLike the ruin of a star!

Brother, streams it ever so,Such a torrent tide of woe?Ah, I know not; let us hasteUpwards from this dreary waste,Up to where like music flowingGentler feet are ever going,Streams of life encircling runRound about the spirit-sun!Up beyond the storm and rushWith our lesson let us rise!Lo, the morning's golden flushMeets us midway in the skies!Perished all the dream and strife!Death is swallowed up of Life!